Our Video Made It On The Internet!

Our short film of the wedding made it on the internet!  =)  It's really cute and I just LOVE it!!!  Check it out here!  Hope you enjoy it!

My Bustle

A few weeks before the wedding, it became apparent that my bustle wasn't working right with the tailor that I normally go to!  :(  So, I asked Kelley if she had any recommendations for a bustle person and, of course, she totally did!

Within a few days, I was in touch with Olivia from A Stitch In Time and had an appt for my bustle.  =)  I went in, put on the dress w/ the shoes and w/in a few minutes, she had my dress pinned up in a bustle and she knew where to take in at the top and to make sure it wasn't too tight!  =D

I went back a week later for a 2nd fitting.  And a few days before the wedding, I picked up my dress, which was stuffed, pressed and ready to be put on!  She even pinned a little blue bow in my dress so that I would have something blue.  =)

Here's my dress pre-bustling:

Here's some shots of dress post-bustle.  I can't believe how awesome she is and how easy it was for her to come up w/ a bustle.

Sand Ceremony

In researching what we would do for our ceremony, I came across several sand ceremony readings and really loved the idea.  When I showed Russ the sand ceremony idea, he loved it too!  It was esp great b/c Casa was right on the beach and it would fit right in.  =)

Basically, the sand ceremony is like the unity candle thing, except w/ sand.  Sooo...here's us pouring our separate sand into one bottle.

And here's the final product of our sand ceremony:

Ring Bearer Bowl

Instead of a ring bearer pillow, we decided to get a Paloma's Nest Ring Bearer Bowl.  It was really awesome b/c we could customize it with anything we wanted.  That was sooooo much more simpler than trying to find a pillow that would match our colors.  Not to mention, we weren't finding any designs that we liked, esp b/c a lot of them were really flower-y, which just seemed very 80s to us.

Anyway, we decided to use the following quote from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho:

ONE IS LOVED BECAUSE
ONE IS LOVED.
NO REASON IS NEEDED
FOR LOVING.

- THE ALCHEMIST
 

And then we decided to have it end with:
"J + R 5/29/2010"

 It was really beautiful.  =)  Here's a pic of it:

Wedding Night Props

While Russ and I were saying bye to everyone, Anita and Audrey were in our room *decorating* it for our arrival.  Apparently the two of them were very happy and had A LOT of fun *decorating* it.  heehee.

When we walked in, there were rose petals everywhere!  They started a bath for us, lit some candles and opened a bottle of sparking wine for us.  heehee.  It was gorgeous!!  =)

In addition to all of that, my mom gave us some important things that would ensure a healthy and strong marriage for us.  Here's what they are:

The hearth w/ the strings connecting it are supposed to keep us tied together and strong.

Now, they're on display in our bookshelf in our room.  =D

Stolen!

Someone *stole* my dress!  During my random perusals of blogs, I saw someone wearing my dress!  *gasp*  ;)  haha.

Check it out here.  I think I looked better (or at least that's what Russ says).  hahahaha.

Our Photobooth

We didn't have the traditional photo booth b/c it would cost more than we wanted.  So, we made our own backdrop, added some "Breakfast At Tiffany's" themed props and viola!  Instant Photo booth!  =)

I don't know if it was a great idea though b/c it's unclear how many ppl actually knew it was a photobooth and utilized it as such.  But I found some ppl using it.  We totally forgot to take some pics there tho!  Dang it!!

Here's the little flower girl playing with our props.  It's quite obvious that she likes the necklace and the bling ring:

See the banjo/guitar (above)...That was part of our scavenger-hunting that we did.  A few days before the wedding, Russ was trying to tune the guitar, but accidentally broke a string!  Oops.  So, he went to Guitar Center to buy a new string and re-tune it.  Did you play the guitar???

Russ spent a lot of time making this cracker jack box.  We initially tried to buy some cracker jacks, but we looked everywhere and not a single store carried the cracker jacks!  So...Russ ingeniously made this giant cracker jack box out of a print out that I did:

We were trying to find some oval picture frames but couldn't find any!  :(  We went to every single swap meet in LA; we went to Michael's; we went to Aaron Bros. and still couldn't find any.  So, we ended up buying these cheap-y rectangle ones.  Looks like it was put to good use!

So, in addition to the picture frames and the banjo/guitar, we got masks (like in Breakfast At Tiffany's) and we also got some little lip/tongue sticks.  heehee

I think we did a really good job of utilizing all of the different elements of Breakfast At Tiffany's and making it into our photobooth!

Special Thanks to A&W and G&J for utilizing all the props and taking tons of pics of it!!!  =)

Icebreakers

I know I already talked about the little icebreaker straw-flags we made with the questions and answers on it, but here's the final product in use!  =)

I've been hearing from most ppl that they engaged in the game playing.  =D  We had fun coming up with the trivia about ourselves, but not as much fun making the dang straw-flags!!  :(

So, here's a list of our final trivia questions.  Were you able to match the questions with the answers?

Q: Tom Cruise & Russ star in what movie?
A: Mission Impossible 3

Q: Team Edward or Team Jacob?
A: Summit Entertainment
A: Team Edward
A: Team Jacob

Q: What was Russ’ first car?
A: Honda Civic

Q: What college did Russ go to?
A: UVA (Wahoo wa)

Q: What is Jeanne’s favorite color?
A. The Color Purple

Q: What college did Jeanne go to?
A: UCLA (Go Bruins!)

Q: What is Jeanne’s favorite childhood movie?
A: The Sound of Music

Q: What are Jeanne’s favorite Sanrio characters?
A: Pochacco and Ahiru No Pekkle

Q: Where did we first meet?
A: Nacional

Q: Where did we go on our first date?
A: Café Montana

Q: Where did Russ propose to Jeanne?
A: Rome, Italy

Q: Which HUGE concert did we go to at the Rose Bowl?
A: U2

Q: Where will we go for our honeymoon?
A: Turkey

Q: What is our favorite restaurant?
A: Mozza

Q: What is Russ’ favorite food?
A: Xiao Long Bao (little round steamed dumplings) or Pizza

Q: What is Jeanne’s favorite food?
A: Anything and everything, except kiwi and honeydew

Q: What is Jeanne’s current favorite movie?
A: Italian Job

Q: What is Russ’ current favorite movie?
A: The Natural

Russ came up with the tricky answers.  See how a lot of the answers can be interchangable?  For example, my fave color is purple.  But instead of just writing "Purple" as the answer, Russ changed it to be "The Color is Purple," which happens to be a movie title, which would easily be confused for a movie question!!  Or how we're going on our honeymoon in Turkey, which can easily be confused w/ our fave food questions.  =)
 
Russ was quite proud of his tricky skills.  So...how many did you get right during cocktail hour??  ;)

Centerpieces

We really LOVED our centerpieces!!  I wish we got to enjoy them more!  Everything seemed to go by in a flash!

Fleuretica really out-did themselves!!  What they showed us at the preview was great, but what they did for the wedding was just awesome!!  =)

Per Kelley's suggestions, and to fit w/ the lampshade vases we were planning on... we had 2 long rectangle tables.  The rest were the standard rounds.  It was perfect!  =)  Check out the rounds first (since they're more standard):

We got some pin-spot lighting on the tables.  I think that's what it's called.  ;)  Here's the close up:

And now for my fave...the long rectangle tables w/ the lampshade vases:

See how cool it looked!!!  =)

We interspersed the lampshade vases w/ some smaller centerpieces which sat on top of a orange polka-dot cloth covered box that was complemented with purple tassels on the 4 corners.  If you look really closely on the pic above, you'll notice the purple tassel.  Love it!

Here's a close up of the flowers inside the lampshade vases:

I think they were parrot tulips.  That's why they look a bit feathery.  And I think there are also some orchids in there!  =)

And here's a pic of the tassel sticking out of the lampshade vases:

I just love the lampshade vases!!

And now for the best part!  The flowers that were on the sweethearts table!  =D  Those were beautiful.  I wish I could replicate that and have it on my desk daily!  ;)

It really looked like the sunset.  =)

The Hoopah

I'm not sure if I'm spelling it correctly so forgive my ignorance, but one of my favorite-ist thing about the wedding ceremony was our Hoopah or Chuppah.  When you see the pics, you'll totally see what I mean!

We (or maybe it was me) really wanted the chandelier hanging off the Hoopah.  I saw this ridiculously beautiful picture and I totally thought it would work wonderfully w/ Casa's decor.

Basically, Fleuretica took our random ideas about a Hoopah (I originally wanted a dark bamboo looking thing), and in conjunction w/ Kelley, came up w/ 4 potential Hoopah ideas.  Euri even did little drawings for us so that we could see it visually!  That's how unbelievably helpful they are!!!  Anyway, since we scrimped and saved in other areas, Russ OK'd my splurging on the chandelier...  And I'm soooo happy that we did!  It was beautiful!!!

You can totally see how they covered up the metal rod parts w/ the chiffon (I think), decorated the top 4 corners w/ our wedding color flowers (sunset-y) and right in the middle...was our chandelier w/ purple ribbon tied to it!!  It was gorgeous!

You can totally see from the pic above how the chandelier & the hoopah fit perfectly w/ Casa's other chandelier decor!!  =)

After the wedding, someone (smartly) came up to us and said our ceremony was soooo beautiful!  We got married, right when the sun was setting and we glowed beautifully w/ the perfectly matched sunset flowers.  =D  heehee.  We (Fleuretica & Kelley mainly) accomplished our goal!!!  =)

Wedding Cake

Vanilla Bake Shop in SM did a super awesome job w/ our wedding cake!!!  =)

I don't think I went into a lot of detail about our cake tasting, but basically we went, we tasted several cakes and we decided on Passion Fruit Creme and Mint Chocolate.

Initially, we chose Spicy Carrot instead of the Mint Chocolate b/c I was afraid that the chocolate might get all messy.  But when we went to Haeli & Malcolm's wedding, I was extremely inspired b/c they had chocolate and it didn't turn out messy!  So, I called Vanilla Bake Shop and asked them to change it to a dark cake and it was great!  =)

But in addition to the tastings, we met w/ Amy - head chef - and she was totally inspired by the beautiful design Tianyi had done, esp w/ our profiles and the blocks Tianyi used.  Immediately, Amy started making drawings of how she would decorate our cakes.  And she totally embraced our (or probably Kelley's) three-cake idea!

Within about 1 week of meeting w/ Amy, we got 3 drafts of what our cake might look like.  We chose one of them and on May 29, 2010, Vanilla Bake Shop delivered these beauties to Casa:

Can you see how well they mirrored our invitations!  And each cake was slightly different, but had the same kind of motif!  I totally LOVED it!!!

These pics are courtesy of Anita & Jason!  Happy Wedding Cake Eating!!

Wedding Jewelry

Planning a wedding comes down to every last detail that you would not normally think of (esp for a tomboy)!  The jewelry decision-making was definitely not easy for me b/c:  (1) I wear the same jewelry; (2) I'm a tomboy; (3) I hardly ever accessorize more than necessary; (4) I don't have a knack for accessories; (5) I didn't have much help from my mom and sister b/c they also don't have a knack for accessories either!  Of course, that didn't prevent me from constantly asking them if they liked something or not!!

Anyway, the jewelry hunt started off a bit late...  I sort of didn't realize how close the wedding was until around the end of March!  eeks!  After that, my mom and my sister totally got on the band wagon and went to basically every single Nordstrom, Bloomies and Macy's in the LA/OC area and got everything that I *might* like and that *might* go w/ the dress!

 We tried every single piece of jewelry we bought w/ the dress and *finally* made a decision like about 2 weeks before the wedding!  Talk about cutting it close!  Then we returned everything that we didn't like.  =)

With the help of my mom, sister, Godmother and Russ, I decided to do one set of jewelry for the ceremony and another set for the reception.  This was spawned by the fact that I wanted to keep my dress on the entire night (and not change), esp b/c I'll only wear my dress once.  Also b/c I was planning on switching up my dress from the more traditional look during the ceremony to a "party" look for the reception.

So, here's what the jewelry looked like during the ceremony:

The earrings are from Mikimoto:

I kept the same bracelet on all night.

Below is how my dress looked during the ceremony:

And here's what my veil looked like.  I kept it really simple b/c I didn't want it to cover up the lace on my dress or the train.

You're also probably wondering what I was doing w/ the giant bag of toys for the ring bearer.  I wanted to bribe him to walk down the aisle.  So the idea was that if he did a good job, he'd get this giant bag of toys.  =)  I think the bribe worked great!

After the ceremony and some pics, I changed into a different look.  I added on this bling-y belt, changed my earrings, took off the veil and put on pink flower hair-clips, and kept the same bracelet.

Here's a good pic of the new earrings (straight from Nordstrom's) and my pink flower hair-clips:

Here's my bling-y belt and me acting funny w/ Ronson:

And finally w/ me and Russ:

Thankfully we nixed any idea of a necklace since we were having such major issues finding the right necklace.  Not to mention, it didn't look that good w/ the dress.  ;)  heehee